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B2C (Business to Consumer) digital marketing is any marketing activity that helps businesses communicate with consumers. This is opposed as B2B (Business to Business). There are key differences between B2C marketing and B2B but that's not the goal of the article today.
The internet has introduced several new digital marketing strategies. They provide new ways of reaching users besides traditional channels like TV or billboards. Digital platforms provide new ways for companies to market their products to end-users. Yet, they come with the difficulty of learning how to use each platform to deliver your message.
What is B2C marketing? How does B2C marketing work? How to plan a B2C digital marketing strategy? This is the kind of questions we're going to answer today. This is why I've made a list of my favorite B2C marketing tactics and strategies that will help you increase your traffic, boost your brand's visibility online and sell more stuff with killer B2C marketing campaigns.
These can be individuals who are the end-users of the product or service. They have a personal stake in your offerings, your products or services solve one of their pain points so they wish to use them to meet a personal need.
While this may seem daunting, it comes down to knowing which strategies to implement. In doing so, you can connect with target consumers and nurture your brand. This improves your customer acquisition and business profitability.
Top 8 B2C Marketing Tactics and Digital Marketing Strategies
The goal of B2C marketing is to get customers shopping on your website and drive sales. It's important to note that B2C marketing is a team sport. You need to work in tandem with your website designers/developers and social media team by creating content that will engage potential consumers on their screens and driving sales for products you offer.
Bad marketing can be as worse than no marketing at all. If you plan to use a marketing strategy, it’s best to use it effectively.
Most brands that succeed in B2C digital marketing have gone through a lot of trial and error. This should not be a reason to fear experimentation. Testing often results in new learnings and can be done for relatively cheap.
With that in mind, here are the top B2C marketing tactics and digital marketing strategies today. Besides covering each strategy, we’ll provide examples of companies executing each one.
1. Know your Customers and Target Audience
This is probably one of the most common B2C marketing tactics out there but, unfortunately, a lot of brands forget about it. This might be surprising to you to hear that but it's actually true. To position your brand image correctly and use it to its full potential, you need to conduct extensive research to have a good understanding of who is looking at what. Having a deep understanding about your target market will help you craft the right content, the right tone of voice and messaging. You want to create content that resonates with your target audience and leverage the power of personalized marketing! So, work on it start to discover more about your target market.
When you're starting a business, it's important to know your customers and target audience. Only if you know them well, you'll be able to run the company successfully. You have to decide where your customers are from, what they do, how much they earn...
Think about the last time you read a blog or social media post that drove you to buy something. You likely made a purchase after reading a post that resonated with your pain points. This is the heart of content marketing – speaking to consumers on a personal level.
Unfortunately, few brands do this. Most brands communicate with their customers by trying to promote their products. Instead, they could be building relationships by first getting to know their customers and addressing their needs. This allows you to communicate an effective solution to their problems.
Warby Parker, a direct-to-consumer brand that sells glasses, noticed a pain point. Most customers were afraid of purchasing glasses online without first trying them out. To address this, the brand created a Home-Try-On program. This allows customers to try on frames at home before making a purchase.
2. Drive Engagement with Contests
People love entering contests and you always want to increase customer engagement. Contests work best when the rules are simple, and the prizes are worth it.
Whether it is on social media, email or your blog, you can engage followers with a fun contest. Plus, contests are easy to organize, making them an effective B2C marketing strategy.
Running contests can be a great way to build email lists , encourage users to share your content on social media, and get more eyes on all of your online platforms. Contests can even help you generate new leads that will eventually become customers.
Make the prize something that your customers find valuable. If your brand sells natural health products, it makes no sense to give them a coupon for McDonald’s. While a Big Mac is tasty, it is not in line with your customers’ values and would contradict your brand’s message.
A good example of using contests is zero plastic waste brand MOOP. They ran a promotion where customers who refer the most friends receive free products. Visitors could reserve their free spot by referring more people. This resulted in almost 4,000 referrals within a few weeks.
3. Grow Traffic with SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an inbound marketing strategy and is still considered as one of best B2C marketing tactics because, when done well, you can leverage the power of search engines' algorithm to bring a constant flow of organic traffic, leads and sales to your business.
About 82% of digital marketers agree that SEO as a digital marketing strategy is on the rise. To win at SEO, you need to find what your customers are searching for on search engines like Google. This will help you find their intent. You will also be able to create content around those keywords to rank in the search engines.
As website owners or webmasters, your goal is to have visitors on your site because qualified and targeted traffic means revenue. If someone is looking for a toaster oven, they might search for “best toaster ovens”. Knowing this can help you create content that answers questions related to their searches.
It is important to note that potential customers can be anywhere in the buyer’s journey. They could be researching, comparing options, or be ready to buy. Create content that targets all these stages.
A company that uses keywords to produce high-ranking content is Casper (mattress brand). They know which keywords their customers are searching for and use this information as part of their SEO content strategy.
4. Give a Bonus Gift with Each Purchase
Who doesn’t love freebies? Providing a bonus gift with each purchase is a must-try B2C marketing strategy. You shouldn’t underestimate the power of giving value away for free. It will increase the value of the product you are trying to sell. A good first purchase experience increases the chances that customers will buy from you again.
Make sure the bonus gift is something that complements your main product. Let's say you sell books on how to save money. Why not throw in an extra downloadable guide with extra money-saving tips? This was just a quick example, but the idea also works if you have a brick and mortal store or if you're in the online shopping industry.
The future of marketing is personalized. Personalized experiences create a more memorable, engaging and authentic connection with customers that are both existing as well new ones for which you're trying to reach out. How can this be done? One way would be tailored marketing campaigns based off their specific needs so they feel like an individual rather than just another number; what better way then creating one-of-a kind offers tailored just right where consumers need/want it most!
Grove Collaborative sells many household and personal care products. They offer customers a $35 Meyer’s Cleaning Set when they make their first purchase. This results in higher conversion rates and increased long-term retention.
5. Build a Following on Social Media
Social media marketing has transformed the digital marketing landscape. Not only it helps with brand awareness, it also allows businesses with little to no money to grow their customer base. When you have a knack for creativity and are able to create quality content, social media is actually quite easy. For those with some money, they can further amplify their efforts with paid ads.
When starting on your inbound marketing and social media marketing campaigns, organic growth is the way to go. It allows your potential customers to interact with your brand. What you want is to get active followers.
Of course, "active" does not mean bombarding all your followers with posts about every little thing you do. It means posting relevant information that fans would find interesting and sharing engaging content that promotes discussion among users. This can encourage up to 71% of customers recommend you to family and friends.
Social media strategies to grow organically include:
● Following and interacting with influencers in your niche
● Creating a branded hashtag for your brand and customers to share
● Pick the right social media platforms for your brand. Why? There are so many social media channels out there: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, SnapChat, Pinterest, etc. Twitter and LinkedIn are mostly for B2B but TikTok, Instagram and Facebook can be great for B2C.
● Sharing engaging and relevant posts for your audience on your social media pages
Social Media can be great for B2C marketing. It is a fabulous way to get your business noticed, especially in this day and age when people are constantly on their phones. Not only does social media give you the chance advertise yourself; it can also be used for customer service and improve your customer experience! The power of customer feedback should not be underestimated. You never know what the people who are already your customers think about your brand, and you may miss out on a great opportunity by not taking their insights seriously enough!
The most important thing in today's age is to be heard. That means you need a strong social media presence that connects with your customers to build trust.
We would recommend starting small by posting pictures or short videos like as an introduction before gradually expanding outwards into longer posts containing valuable information about your product lines which are sure not only help grow traffic but also promote yourself too.
A company that does this well is Glossier. They share engaging and informative posts related to beauty and makeup on their Instagram account. Their custom marketing messages have resulted in them acquiring over two million followers.
6. Use Influencers to Build Trust
Influencer marketing is one of the best ways to target your message to a specific audience. They are people who have an active online following, whether that's on Facebook , Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok or Instagram . These influencers are often passionate about what they do and also highly networked. This means they have the potential to reach a huge number of people in their social community. Building relationships with these key players can benefit any company looking to spread its brand messaging through word-of-mouth influence.
Influencer marketing has proven to work for B2C marketing. Many large companies partner with celebrities to market their brand. For example, Nike paid Christiano Ronaldo one billion dollars to market their brand. In return, he features Nike on TV, billboards, magazines and any other media outlets.
But not every company has that amount of budget. Luckily, many brands can afford influencer marketing.
Influencers are internet celebrities with thousands, even millions of followers on social media.
Positive customer word of mouth from them can build social proof and influence the buyer’s decision. But, not all influencers have millions of followers. You also have what's call micro or macro influencers who have small but engaged communities. With a combination of data driven marketing and micro/macro influencer marketing, you can do wonders! Indeed, those types of influencers are also still far less expensive than major celebrities.
This tactic not only gives you access to very targeted audiences, but it also does so at a fraction of the cost compared with other forms of advertising. Influencer marketing doesn't need to be expensive either.
There are plenty of opportunities out there and the most cost effective and efficient method of finding your influencers is to use a searchable database. Once you've created an account, searching for relevant influencers is as easy as ticking off their interest or skill set. You can even include post frequency as part of your criteria as this will help with any further research you might need to do on each potential influencer.
Once you find those influencers that meet your requirements, it's important to look closely at their content. Some people choose to focus solely on celebrity endorsements, but that may not be for everyone. When someone enjoys a product endorsed by a celebrity then there's a good chance that they might also enjoy a similar product that they can relate to. A good way of taking this one step further is by using a micro influencer . These are typically individuals who have anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 followers.
Look at Colourpop, for example. Their collaborations page features many influencers, which help promote the brand. These include Zoe Sugg (@zoella), Karen Sarahi Gonzalez (@iluvsarahii) and Bretman Rock.
7. Create a Customer Loyalty Program
How can you get your customers to come back time and again? Most small business owners want more loyal customers, ones that return time after time to make purchases. The best way is with a customer loyalty program.
Such programs reward customers for shopping in your (online) store or buying products. A loyalty program increases customer spending and encourages return visits, while also increasing the average size of each order. Loyalty programs provide another benefit: brand visibility.
If you reward existing customers for interacting with your brand, they will be more likely to engage. By offering loyalty programs with special rewards and tiers, you gamify the process. Customers strive to achieve more rewards with each brand interaction. On top of that, you instill a sense of brand loyalty that can create customer advocates.
When implementing a loyalty program, an affiliate one or a referral marketing campaign, make sure you track relevant customer data. Without strong and proper data analytics, you won't really know what's working and what's not.
For instance, Rhone has a loyalty program called Rhone Rewards. Their loyalty program encourages customers to make more purchases. Customers get rewarded with a point for every dollar spent. Once the points accumulate, they redeem points to receive free products.
8. Remember to Retarget
Retargeting (also known as remarketing) is one of the most efficient marketing tools for increasing return on investment. For advertisers, it means reaching to the right people with the right message at the right time. Retargeting uses custom audience targeting based on users' behavior - browsing products, websites, apps or videos and other behaviors that might signal interest in a particular product category or service category. That's why retargeting can also be called "behavioral" or "interest-based" remarketing.
Retargeting is one of those B2C marketing tactics that can be very powerful and effective for your business. Leverage retargeting if you want to boost your sales and get the most of your marketing efforts. There's very little chance that a first-time visitor purchases from you. So, what you want to do is retarget the most engaged ones through advertising, email marketing and other marketing channels that you have at your disposition.
If a customer has purchased from you in the past, they may be open to purchasing again. That is why retargeting, re-engaging with past customers, is a must-try B2C digital marketing strategy. Retargeting is usually done through paid advertising. It’s a more costly strategy, but it provides a positive ROI that’s worth the investment.
It is easy for customers to forget a brand they interacted with in the past. Something as simple as a Facebook ad can bring back interest in your brand. While they might not buy from you immediately, customers will think of your brand next time they need your product.
There are marketing tools like Shoelace that help create automated retargeting campaigns. This is something that companies like Heyday Footwear use this to remind past purchasers about their brand. After the customer leaves their website, they show them a series of ads to get them to revisit their site.
Final Thoughts on B2C Marketing Tactics and Digital Marketing Strategies
Reaching more customers to increase sales is a matter of using the right strategies. You need to align your business plan with the marketing objectives of your business. By implementing the right ones, you will improve your buying process and sales funnel and reduce the sales cycle. The aim of B2C digital marketing is to advertise to your target audience online. This gives people a compelling reason to choose your brand over others. Better yet, it gives you the power to communicate your message effectively.
Start by understanding your customers and their pain points. Drive engagement with viral contests. Use SEO to target specific keywords that will direct visitors to your website. Then, give them a bonus gift with each purchase to make your offer more valuable.
You don't want to put all your eggs in the same basket. Have an omnichannel strategy where you create content on multiple channels. Use a variety of B2C marketing tactics and strategies to make your customers feel like they are the only one in existence.
Get personal with them by talking on an authentic level as if you were friends, host contests and promotions that inspire creativity from others - this will create more exposure among potential buyers! Utilize free offers included within purchases or add-ons when possible, optimize your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy, run retargeting campaigns targeting those interested enough already about the products you offer.
Utilize social media to increase your following organically and by leveraging influencers. You can use loyalty programs to make brand engagement worthwhile. Finally, don’t forget to retarget customers that have already purchased from you.
With these strategies in mind, you are ready to create a B2C marketing campaign. Which one will you try first?
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